


all the stars in the sky

by ninemoons42



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Baze Malbus is a big softy, Established Relationship, Inspired by Real Events, M/M, Rogue One - some of them live, inspired by TRAPPIST-1, space dads forever, spiritassassin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 17:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10036970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: They're out of the fight, and that means they can snatch a little bit of peace and quiet.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts), [kannibal (keio)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keio/gifts).



All his world currently consists of the cramped confines of a shuttle. It’s not the _Rogue One_ shuttle. It’s smaller than that. You could barely fit three beings into it, so the mere fact that he’s still sitting in the pilot’s seat, alive to enjoy the strange view flung out before him, is something of a miracle. 

He is here because he is nursing an ankle that is halfway to broken, and he counts it as a win, because he has never minded broken bones, and he will happily bear broken bones if it means the pilot –- Bodhi –- lives to actually fly them out of this system. 

He has lent his guns, most of them that he usually carries on his person, to Jyn and to Cassian, and he even managed to tilt his head encouragingly at the girl, and he won’t tell anyone that he treasures the impulsive and nearly desperate way she hugs, when he’s the recipient. 

She’s even gone so far as to learn a few phrases of the dialect that he and Chirrut still use to communicate with each other: at the very least, she calls him, fondly, _Elder Brother_.

(Chirrut, to Jyn, is _Honored Uncle_. It amuses Baze to no end. Sure, his husband won’t be able to see the grin on his face, but he knows it’s there, and every time Jyn walks away after saying those words Baze is happy to listen to Chirrut’s complaints. He only sounds peevish, after all; Baze can easily hear the fondness in his voice, can easily see the fond lines creasing his forehead and his cheeks.)

Speaking of Chirrut: Baze watches as he stirs, in the co-pilot’s seat, and blinks himself awake. Nothing wasted in the movements that allow him to navigate the small world around him: the margins of the chair, the edges of the controls and consoles, the sandblasted pocked translucent viewports. 

Baze takes Chirrut’s hand when it quests in his direction. Kisses the worn knuckles carefully. Chirrut’s sporting new bruises all over his hands and he’s proud of them, because it means his student is making progress. Baze spends a lot of time sitting on the edges when Luke Skywalker is in training, and has offered to show him some of his other guns, as well. The boy will need to know about all the different kinds of weapons he can make good use of.

(Baze also thinks that if he convinces Skywalker that he still needs to work on his ranged weapons skills, the boy will soon find himself training alongside –- Organa. She is a powerful shot, far more experienced than most beings of that young age, it’s true, but she tends to favor heavier blasters, and those sometimes will not do the trick on a mission that leans more towards being inconspicuous. Baze is thinking about permanently seconding two or three of the smallest holdout blasters in his arsenal to her.

(Chirrut, of course, is carrying the smallest one, tucked securely into his sleeve that hides all manner of sins and tricks.)

“Good nap,” he rumbles, now, and returns Chirrut’s hand to that lap.

“I feel a little more rested. And now I believe you owe me –- a world. Worlds. Tell me about this place where we are.” Chirrut smiles, and Baze gives in to the impulse. Leans over. Lets his mouth linger against Chirrut’s temple. Silver hairs, creeping in slowly around the edges of his close-cropped hair. Those hairs have only multiplied in the weeks and months since Scarif, and Baze thinks Chirrut will only look more distinguished as time goes by, not that he didn’t already. It’s just that beings tend to stop, astonished, at that boyish grin that hides so many sharp edges and so much needling wisdom.

Chirrut’s fingertips brush affectionately along the edges of his hairline, tangling briefly into the scruff covering his cheeks. “Perhaps you need a little neatening,” he laughs, quietly.

“No one to look at me but you,” Baze grunts. “Everyone else can just –- avert their eyes.”

“You can be a little intimidating.”

“Exactly.”

Chirrut smiles. Kisses him, brush of mouth to mouth, and again that warmth ignites in Baze’s chest, lodged carefully between his ribs. The warmth that Chirrut throws off in the storm of the fight and in the silence of the somnolent hours.

He closes his eyes, and pulls away. Leans out. The sky outside the viewports looms, spread out in crimson shades from horizon to horizon. 

“There are seven worlds in orbit around this one star,” he begins. “We are on one, and there are three more hanging in the sky, and the others will be visible in the next few hours. I can see mountains and seas on the three other worlds. As far as we know, they’re inhabited with -– nonsentient beings. Animals, birds, fish, I don’t know. The probes are all we’re leaving there.”

“Not like our footsteps here, or the echoes of our voices,” Chirrut says, quietly. “The beat of our hearts. Do you think the others are well?”

“Normally I would ask you that question,” is Baze’s reply. “On the other hand: they have my guns. They are intelligent. They are capable. I do not fear for them.”

“Then I shall not.”

He takes Chirrut’s hand, this time, and holds it, gently. 

The thought of “borrowing” this shuttle and taking Chirrut to those other planets is a strong itch in his arms and shoulders and feet.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by, of all the things, the news about the extrasolar planets surrounding the star designated TRAPPIST-1. But then again, I have always had a lot of space feels.
> 
> I am on tumblr [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
